I noticed that the seat to trade gold and silver on CBOT is offered at $19,500 whereas the COMEX gold and silver seat is offered at $450,000. Liquidity is good at both; so can someone explain the reason for such a dramatic seat price discrepancy? I'm considering a seat purchase.
The COMEX is where commercial-size traders, institutions, and even central banks are. Official international transactions occur here. You feel man enough to play with these guys?? Contract sizes are different too. I don't know all the exact differences point by point, but I know the CBOT pits are made up of smaller traders, entities, hedge funds, and even rich individuals trading their own accounts.
CBOT metals are solely electronic and COMEX is open outcry, you can only get so many traders into a pit, so thats why they are at a huge premium while theoretically you could have an unlimited number of seats in an electronic market.
I checked 5/11/06 E-CBOT volume for June Gold. It was 54,409. COMEX volume for June Gold was 85,404. Open interest in COMEX is greater than CBOT by a wide margin. I traded both exchanges today on 5/12/06. Slippage wasn't bad on the COMEX, considering it's open outcry. Both contracts, ZG (CBOT) and GC (COMEX) are the same size, being 100 oz. Thanks.